Soliloquy
by pumpkinskull
Summary: Ten years ago that Boy managed to live. But you must understand... The hardest time Voldemort ever had convincing anyone to do anything.


_My note unto you:_ Reviews for character accuracy and stylistic elements would be most appreciated.

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The dry leaves scratch at my phantom body. Crawling and itchy, prickly with the scents of autumn, I wind my way through them, searching, starving.

You cannot know the hunger I have faced for these long years. Trapped as less than flesh, less than ghost, less than spirit; unable to escape this world to whatever fate awaits me. You cannot understand the pain, the constant agony: less than the curse I have used against countless others, the curse whose purpose is pain; but so much worse for its constancy, its dependability. If I could fall asleep it would be wrought with this hollow ache, but I could be unconscious, I could escape it only long enough for it to be all the worse when I awoke.

And they will tell me I know no fate worse than death. If I had known a way to find death in that state, that despicable, weak state, I would not have sought it out. There is nothing so horrible as death. What lies beyond the veil for me will be wrought with horror, and it will not shed any forgiveness upon me. Why should it? I have never felt the stirrings of a soul within me.

It is hard to exist when you need no sustenance but crave it. The warmth of a living body, a stark contrast to this chilled wind. A taste of flesh- I can almost reach it, I do sometimes. I can ensnare the minds of my only companions now, the serpents, the creatures that can but hug the earth as they try to survive; I can live through them, vicariously, watching, tasting, but I am always hungry.

I have been in pain for so long.

It is hard to concentrate on thought for so long; the mind, my mind, no matter how powerful, is rendered weak, a shameful wreck before the mass of agony, the nerves that aren't there screaming out against me. Forgive me, my body, for you are not there for me to tend to, but I would if I could.

My body was beautiful. My mind was- still is- the most productive, creative, the strongest I have ever come across.

But what use is it to the damp rain, the clinging forests, the foul soul, and the snakes that care not for my words beyond what I force out of them.

I feel more alone than I can ever remember feeling, but it is not the concept of loneliness which pains me. It has just been so long. My existence is grey-shaded, my reality is dull, my all and everything is nothing but monotonous. I need some change, any kind of change. You must understand that.

You must understand what I have lived through. I who have never felt love, in my own heart or from that of another. My father who left my mother before I was born, my mother who must have died cursing my existence, wrenching with pain and terror of what awaited her after life. The distance of the women forced to raise me, the fear they felt as soon as I showed any strangeness, any divergence from the norm.

I cannot claim that these things have poisoned my mind, turned my innocence into something dark and ugly.

I was not born with the luxury of innocence.

I am a bastard, a filthy Half-blood who wasn't wanted by his father. Even when I went to speak with him, he wanted nothing of me. Not that I expected it. Oh, I had planned to kill Tom Riddle.

And now I have, completely. Nothing exists of his foul line. My soul, my memory, is so enlaced with magic it cannot be anything of his. My mother, still alive, or dying.

That is what this is, it is dying.

I have been dying for ten years.

Sometimes I feel that I can hear those from the other side, but the screaming pain of it all doesn't let me listen. There is no pity from them.

No, I don't want your pity either. You merely must understand.

I am a bastard child, a cursed child. I was not created with love, but with a potion that mimics its basest effects. I was never treated with it, and I have never felt a need for it. But now they tell me- those who whisper through my pines, unaware of my presence- they tell me that it is love, some ancient magic, which killed me. It is because some boy was loved by his mother.

Because his mother was loved by a man. His mother was loved by her parents.

And despite myself, I feel rage coiling itself inside of me, as invisible and infallible as the rest of me, as ethereal as air and mist and smoke, at that thought. They tell me it is love that killed me, because I couldn't understand it.

And I would sneer at them, and yell at them, and scream at them, if they would hear: How could I?

Why should I?

For eleven years I was not shown love. I was shown only the barest sympathy in my earliest years, and even that was distanced by distaste, by fear. A bastard orphan boy, whose mother died screaming, cursing his name.

They never told me this much, but I have assumed it. She must have hated me. Why else would she name me for the man who left her to die there, or her father who made every moment of her life a hell close to my own?

Merope Gaunt, I wonder if you're laughing at me now.

You must understand me. You cannot understand me.

You cannot understand what it is to be nothing but a soul, but to not have one. Did you know that the Dementors never took an interest in me? They could hardly smell me. Only malice and rage flavoured my mind, there was nothing happy there for them to take. I was empty in life, and now I am not even fit for death.

You cannot understand that I have never, not once, felt genuine happiness. You cannot understand that I know, I know that I should feel the deepest sorrow at that thought. You cannot understand that I equally can't feel the sadness. I feel only a hot-white rage, or a lapse of calmness, a blessed emptiness.

There must have been something inside of me, though. Something that I broke into pieces, buried about the world, something that is linking me to this world, with this feeble existence. There was something in there, some cold dank corpse of a soul that never so much as twitched a finger, something rotten and thoroughly miserable. They have said that I am a monster because I broke it, but I think it would be far crueller to leave it in that one sad piece.

At least I didn't leave it in its own sorry company.

…You must help me.

I know you can come up with a thousand reasons why not. I know I haven't given you any better ones. But let me tell you something: what I am is not my fault. Everything I have become was never my fault, everything that I have been I had no control over, and never will.

I have controlled others' lives, I have destroyed their lives, brought them death and pain, broken their hearts, and I laughed while I did it. But I have never controlled my own life, none of it.

My anger is but a savage beast whose will I must obey.

I was never given a choice in life like you were. I wasn't given the choice to set aside my anger and reconcile my grief with love. I felt no grief. I have already told you of love.

But listen to me now. You have a choice now. You can help me… you think you have no reason, but you do. What has become of me, it is unfair, and you must see that. This is beyond retribution, beyond vengeance, beyond even what I have done to others. Torture, yes, but never so long.

And what is this for? This is for cutting up a piece of trash and hiding the fragments, this is for trying to rid the world of its own sores; this is for trying to help people like you.

But you can help me. And if you help me, I will help you.

I know I do not seem it now. I seem lifeless, powerless, disfigured, disgusting. I need only your help and I can become whole again. You can help me to walk again, to face the world.

And in return you will have power.

You will have control.

We can share it, you and I. If you would only listen to me. Ignore your heart. Matters of the heart have no place in my world, my broken aching world. I have no heart, physical nor otherwise, and I should be treated as such, as heartless. Don't try to reach out to me with your soul, your sense, your empathy. I cannot feel it.

It is a hideous waste of your own time.

Forgive me for speaking so lengthily to you, think not any less of me for admitting to my past as if I were an emotional creature spilling out his life's broken story to the first sympathetic mind, think not of me as a fool or a windbag, but I have not come across so hungry a mind in ten years…

You could listen to me, you. Cleverer than the others I have come across. Together, you and I can defeat anything. You just need to give me your word.

With your help, I can come back. I can bring glory back to our world; I can set it back on its right track. _Do not_ look at me like that now; I know how you feel about those filthy Muggles. They are not fit to live. They should be eradicated, along with all of impure blood. You know that as my goal, I can see you warming to it. But that has never been my ultimate goal.

The one thing I have always wanted, wanted as greatly as anything else in the world- is to conquer death. Together we can. Give me your aid, lend me a hand, and together we can become immortal, invincible. For your help I will reward you like you can hardly imagine. The world at your feet, my dear. Just imagine it.

No death. Life forever. Glorious and all-powerful, eternally young, eternally joyful. Of course you know now, I will not be joyful, but maybe with immortality, my soul will find its own reconciliation. Maybe with enough time- maybe with forever- even I could be saved…

But to conquer death. That basest, that most disgusting of human weaknesses. It is a shameful thing, really. You know it to be true. A dead corpse lying there. How humiliating. I do not believe I left a body behind then… so I never will again. I will live forever… just with your help. That's all I ask.

What do you have to lose? They will have no way to prove any of it. You never met me. I am dead, don't you remember. And in death my memory is immortal, surely, but that is not enough.

To live, forever. You and I, and anyone you care to take along. With all the luxuries in the world. No one ever to look down on you again, no one to ever dismiss anything you do. All I ask is your word, your cooperation.

There will be no pain. It might not be simple, but you can do it, I am sure. You will have to get past them, you will have to keep me a secret. You _will_ keep me a secret.

You have the choice. You can end my eternal pain, your own.

For I will not accept this any longer, and if you decide not to help me- if you decide, foolishly, to go against me- I can promise that when I find you…

But only listen to me.

I refuse for this to continue any longer.

And I promise you, I promise you…

There will be no more pain, Quirrel.


End file.
